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Homeward Bound

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Ulysses went on his Odyssey, Hannibal crossed the Alps, Bilbo Baggins journeyed through Middle Earth. Me? I have been slagging back and forth to Calais for the past ten years in a Dacia Sandero. Part of me looks forward to the journey; the excitement of what lies ahead, a frisson at the adventures waiting just over the horizon. But, when I hit the péage at Saumur, my heart sinks as the novelty wanes. Six hours, six long hours - Saumur, Le Mans, Rouen, Calais. I pride myself on an ability to do very repetitive, mundane jobs for a long time, but that journey pushes me to some very dark places...I-spy, Count the buzzards sitting along the side of the motorway, What number am I thinking of? Sangatte. We could've moved to Sangatte...I hear it's very pleasant this time of year, only ten minutes drive from the tunnel. But, oh no! Anna, my wife, wanted to move halfway down France. She tries helping out; she will put in a solid 30 minutes before I notice her driving with one eye closed,...
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Just A Phone Call Away

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Anna, my wife, has left me. My lover, friend, mentor, spiritual guide, soulmate, has naffed off to the Azores for a week with a friend to visit another friend who lives there (how many friends does one person need?). 'Where are the Azores?' I hear you ask...in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean... and judging by the photos she's sending back it looks similar to Scotland on a bad weather day. Yet, in the Deux-Sèvres, we bask in heady sunshine and temperatures in the early twenties...that, my friends, is karma. So while she is off gallivanting, I'm left keeping the show on the road: cooking, washing-up, feeding the fish, feeding the cat, feeding the chickens, feeding myself! Going to the mailbox EVERY DAY, collecting the chickens' eggs (who, incidentally, are now pushing out five a day...my cholesterol is going through the roof), putting the wheelie bins out, bringing them back in again. Work, work, work, give, give, give. Every now and then I feel a little vibration in...
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Chicken Lickin'

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Our first lot of chickens sadly died, I think from bird flu. One by one they started staggering about, and then, even the staggering ceased and they just sat on the spot looking at the ground. I then had to dispatch them, which was a very upsetting business. So when Anna, my wife, suggested getting some more, I wasn't keen. As usual she ground me down with the promise that if there was any dispatching to be done, she was head of dispatchments. The other thing that swung it was that all chickens are vaccinated now against bird flu.  Anna was going to Thouars market on Friday to poultry purchase so I had a few days to get the coop and orchard chicken-ready; the door had warped and a few fencing panels needed adding. Amazingly, two years on, the electronic door we bought from China was still working with a set of new batteries.  Anna produced a metal feeder she had bought for 50€. '50€!' I shrieked like a girl, 'what's wrong with the old one?'. The new one looks li...
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Green Fingers

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After selling our Airbnb, Anna, my wife, was worried about having nothing to do with her time and becoming bored. I suggested the novel idea of getting a job, at which she laughed. I said a couple of days at the local abattoir would get her out of the house, enable her to practise her French, meet new friends as well as bringing in a few pennies, and maybe some offcuts. But she wasn't interested. What about gardening? The great outdoors, exercise, good for your mental health (as Monty Don keeps banging on about), etc. I love gardening and have always wanted to get Anna interested. To feel the earth between your fingers, to taste your own home-grown produce and to smell your home-made nettle liquid manure, maturing in the shed. But she says it's not her 'thing'. She loves being outside, appreciating the garden, but from her sun-lounger with a pina colada to hand.  We would be like Jean de Florette and his good lady wife, Mrs Florette (the opera singer), I told her. Tilli...
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See You Next Year, Old Friend.

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I'm not sorry to bid a fond farewell to February...my least favourite month. Unlike Anna, my wife, I don't suffer from Seasonal affective disorder (SAD); she goes into decline in September and emerges from her torpor around May/June. If I say to her the days are getting shorter, a little muscle above her eye starts twitching. February, the month when: our honey solidifies in its jar and the olive oil turns grainy because the kitchen is so cold ('boo'); all my geraniums that I thought might last the winter don't ('boo'); the Six Nations Rugby is on the telly ('hurrah' from me, 'boo' from Anna). One thing I'll say in February's favour...it's short ('hurrah'). With the incessant rain our garden turns into a quagmire; it's like walking on a giant lasagne, slipping and sliding about. Outside our front door it resembles the Somme and when hanging out the washing one is prone to trench foot. As well as the interminable rain t...
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If You're Happy and You Know It.

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Whilst doing mundane jobs around the compound (uprooting brambles, re-grouting swimming pool slabs, stacking five stere of logs) my mind drifts away and I reflect on some of the highs and lows of life in the UK. Sometimes I will start laughing like a loon when I remember some of the more embarrassing incidents from my murky Thespian past. The local amateur dramatic society were holding auditions for their upcoming production of the King and I and my mum had informed us (me, my twin brother and sister) we were going to audition for one of the King's 106 children. None of us wanted to audition but our mum, who was a forceful woman, was adamant. Our audition prep was lacklustre to non existent. If You're Happy and You Know It Clap Your Hands was our chosen song, as we thought the choreography would take care of itself. On the big day we had barely sung Clap You Hands before we descended into uncontrollable giggles of embarrassment. The more we tried to hold it together the worse i...
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In Sickness and in Health

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It was at her parents' diamond wedding anniversary in Scotland that Anna, my wife, contracted the horrible illness. I was all for a quarantine period on her return, but she said she wasn't prepared to live in the barn for two weeks...selfish. It started in the chest giving her a hacking cough, then went on a tour of Anna's body spending some time up her nose...causing it to run constantly, her limbs...making them ache, then back to her chest en route to her sinuses and jaw where her teeth kept throbbing and her eye sockets pulsated. It wasn't Covid as she did three tests (albeit out of date)...all negative. A 24 hour bug this was not, it lasted the best part of four weeks and she still isn't completely her normal, bubbly self. I was like the lady of the lamp popping Strepsils out of their foil pockets, filling hot water bottles, mopping her sweaty brow and trying to keep her buoyant with comforting words and singing to her in her darkest hours. I suggested we call...
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